Painfully dull.

This book started off all right, but it quickly slid into the trap of so many historical non-fiction: it became incredibly dry very quickly. There was little to liven it up; it lacked those interesting details that make history come alive and convince the reader that this was life as lived by real people, not just an endless recitation of facts. Some things were massively oversimplified--the chapter on women's suffrage was particularly disappointing. He's clearly a fan of Cristobel Pankhurst, because she's pretty much the only suffragette he focused on. Even her mother, Emmaline, who was very important in her own right, was barely mentioned. Hattersley also seems to assume that the reader is coming to the book with a fairly wide-ranging knowledge of some pretty random subjects, like early 20th century theatre and architecture, because he glosses over a lot of things in those chapters that could use a bit more explanation.

More political and less domestic than I like in a history - but what else should I expect from Hattersley? Gave me a new view of the neo-cons second favourite Brit, Churchill too